People are craving comfort. Amid what can feel like a state of constant crisis – a layering of traumatic societal events – it can sometimes seem like we’ve lost a sense of scale and cohesion. In the face of this, the desire to retreat into nostalgia is more seductive than ever.

From decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) run on Discord to city-wide mutual aid groups, people are finding safety and optimism in numbers. For growing numbers of people, collective action is emerging as the only viable solution to compounding crises and deepening alienation.

The Van Gogh Museum's Pika-portrait card generated so much hype among Pokémon fans that it led to continuing disruption at the museum. So, despite its broad popularity, the offer was cancelled, indicating a need for infrastructure and organisation to support demand from niche fandoms.

Nintendo is tapping into nostalgia for its latest release – limited edition 2DS consoles that hark back to the original 1996 Pokémon games for the Game Boy. They'll come in red, blue, or yellow versions, each with a corresponding copy of the original game pre-installed on the device.

The pandemic lockdowns resulted in adults having more free time, with many cultivating new past-times, playing games, and finding new ways to escape the seriousness of being a grown-up by doing something they love. But who are the ‘kidults’? And why are they prioritizing playtime?

Nostalgia cycles are shortening as people obsess over times barely passed via popular digital archive accounts that let them cultivate their feeds (without input from an algorithm) and bypass cultural gatekeepers. But how are these visual repositories enabling people to shape new memories as well?